723 



WILLIAM I. OF ORANGE. 



WILLIAM FREDERICK L (NETHERLANDS). 



724 



the Irish Coercion Bill. Lord Althorp was induced to return after 

 about a week ; but the cabinet was understood by this time to have lost 

 the confidence of the king; and on the 16th of November, shortly 

 after Lord Althorp had been called to the Upper House by the death 

 of his father, Earl Spencer, and it became necessary to make a new 

 arrangement with regard to his office of the chancellorship of the 

 exchequer, his majesty sent for the Duke of Wellington, and directed 

 him to construct a new ministry. On the 8th of December Sir Robert 

 Peel was gazetted as first lord of the treasury, the Duke of Welling- 

 ton as foreign secretary, and the cabinet was completed by other 

 names belonging to the Conservative or anti-reform party. On the 

 80th parliament was dissolved. 



This arrangement however did not stand long. On the day on 

 which the new House of Commons assembled, the 19th of February 

 1835, ministers were beaten on the question of the speakership by a 

 majority of ten votes, or by 316 against 306 ; and on the 24th they 

 were again defeated on the address by 309 against 302. They main- 

 tained the struggle for six weeks longer; but at last, upon Lord John 

 Eussell carrying a motion against them on the Irish tithe question 

 (the famous appropriation clause) by a majority of 285 to 258, on the 

 7th of April, they resigned the next day. The king, understood to be 

 now thoroughly hostile to his old friends, in vain attempted a further 

 resistance; by the 18th the Reform party were again in power, with 

 Lord Melbourne as premier. But to Lord Durham, Lord Stanley, Sir 

 James Qraham, Lord Ripon, the Duke of Richmond, Earl Grey, and 

 Earl Spencer, who, having all belonged to the original Reform cabinet, 

 had since ceased to hold office, was now added Lord Brougham. Lord 

 Melbourne's administration lasted for the remainder of the reign. Its 

 most important measures were the several municipal reform acts. 

 William IV. died at Windsor, after a short illness, on the morning of 

 the 20th of June 1837. He was succeeded by Queen Victoria. 

 WILLIAM I. OF ORANGE. [NASSAU, HOUSE OF.] 

 WILLIAM FREDERICK I., King of the Netherlands, Grand-Duke 

 of Luxemburg, Prince of Orange Nassau, was born ab the Hague on 

 the 24th of August 1772. His father, William V., prince of Orange 

 Nassau, hereditary stadtholder, was descended from John the youngest 

 brother of the great William I. of Orange, and died at Brunswick, 

 April 1806. His grandfather William IV., the first hereditary stadt- 

 holder of the United Netherlands (from 1748, who died in 1751), had 

 re-united the possessions of the four branches of the line of Nassau 

 Otho, Hadamar, Siegen, and Dillenberg, with his own branch, that 

 of Dietz. His mother was Frederica Sophia Wilhelmina, daughter 

 of Prince Augustus William of Prussia. In 1788 he made a journey 

 to Germany, and passed some time at the court of his uncle Frederick 

 William I. He afterwards studied for a time at Leyden. 



After his marriage, on the 1st of October 1791, to Frederica Louisa 

 Wilhelmina, daughter of Frederick William of Prussia, he, in con- 

 junction with hia brother Frederick, subsequently distinguished as a 

 general, effected considerable improvements in the Dutch army ; but 

 many impediments were occasioned by internal dissensions the 

 patriots, who had been put down in 1787 by a Prussian force, secretly 

 intriguing against the house of Orange. Some of them had taken 

 refuge in France, and on the 1st of February 1793 the National Con- 

 vention declared war against the stadtholder. Hoping, with the 

 assistance of the patriots, to obtain possession of the rich provinces of 

 Holland, Dumouriez conquered Dutch Brabant, which was however 

 recovered by the hereditary prince, who was commander-in-chief of the 

 Dutch army, which was joined by a body of the allies after the victory 

 of Neerwinden. This victory had been gained over Dumouriez on the 

 18th of March, by the Austrian field-marshal the Prince of Coburg. 

 The hereditary prince then hindered the French army of the north 

 from penetrating into West Flanders ; but on the 13th of September 

 he was attacked in his position between Menim and Werwick with 

 overwhelming force, and obliged to retreat behind the Schelde. Soon 

 after this the hereditary prince took Landrecies, and then, at the head 

 of a Dutch and Austrian army, drove the enemy beyond the Sambre ; 

 but in the great battle of the 16th of June 1794, the French having 

 taken Charleroi by storm and defeated the prince's left wing at Fleurus, 

 he was again obliged by the directions of the Prince of Coburg to 

 retreat. The Austrians retreated before Pichegru and Jourdan behind 

 the Meuse ; and the hereditary prince, with his weakened army, had 

 no alternative but to cover the republic in connection with the army 

 of the Duke of York. But the fortresses fell, and the frost enabled the 

 enemy to pass the Waal on the ice, so that Pichegru entered Utrecht 

 on the 17th of January 1795. The party of the patriots favoured the 

 enemy, and the stadtholder was unable to save the republic, ftn-saken 

 by its allies. His sons had resigned their commands on the 16th of 

 January, and William V., with his family and a few faithful friends, 

 embarked at Scheveningen on the 18th and 19th for England, where 

 the palace of Hampton Court was assigned him as his residence. His 

 two sons returned to the Continent to arm a body of Dutch emi- 

 grants, at the expense of England, which however was dispersed again 

 after the peace of Basel. Prince Frederick then entered the Austrian 

 service, and died at Padua on the 6th of January 1799. 



The hereditary prince then went with his family to Berlin, where he 

 expected a favourable change in his position from the diplomatic 

 influence of the Prussian court, then in alliance with France. He 

 acquired some estates in the vicinity of Posen and in Silesia, and when 



his father made over to him, on the 29th of August 1802, the indem- 

 nity in Germany allotted to him by the Recess of the Empire (Fulda, 

 orvei, Dortmund, Weingarten, and other places), he took up his 

 residence in Fulda, where, in the place of the inefficient university, he 

 established a lyceum, and appropriated the revenues of two suppressed 

 onvents to the foundation of a national hospital. After the death of 

 iiis father he assumed the government of hia Nassau hereditary domi- 

 nions ; but as he declined joining the German Confederation of the 

 Llhine he lost the sovereignty of the possessions of the house of Orange, 

 which were obtained by his relations of Nassau-Usingen and Weilburg, 

 and Murat, grand-duke of Berg ; while Weingarten fell to Wiirtem- 

 tmrg. In August 1806 he went to Berlin, where, as commander of a 

 Prussian regiment, he obtained in September the command-in-chief of 

 a division of the Prussian army between Magdeburg and Erfurt. After 

 the fatal battle of Jena he followed Field-Marshal Mollendorf to Erfurt, 

 and became a prisoner of war in consequence of the capitulation con- 

 cluded by Mollendorf; ho was allowed however to reside with his con- 

 sort in Prussia. Napoleon I. declared that he, as well as the Elector 

 of Hesse and the Duke of Brunswick, had forfeited his dominions; 

 and Fulda was forced already, on the 27th of October, to do homage 

 bo the French emperor. Corvei, Dortmund, and the county of Spiegel- 

 berg were incorporated in 1S07 with the kingdom of Westphalia and 

 the grand-duchy of Berg. Even the domains reserved to him in the 

 act of the Confederation were taken possession of by Berg and Wiir- 

 temburg ; Bavaria did not do so, and the other princes of the Confede- 

 ration promised at least to pay to him the net surplus of the revenue. 

 William had gone in the mean time with his consort and family to 

 Danzig. No mention was made of him in the treaty of Tilsit. He 

 retained the possession of hia estates in the grand-duchy of Warsaw, 

 and again lived at Berlin with his family, and devoted himself to lite- 

 rary pursuits. In the war between France and Austria in 1809, 

 William, with the friend of his youth and constant companion, Fagel, 

 joined the army of the Archduke Charles as volunteers, and fought in 

 the battle of Wagram. He then returned to Berlin, and in 1814 

 obtained the rank of Austrian field- marshal. Meantime, especially 

 after the battle of Leipzig in 1813, influential men such as Hogendorp, 

 v. d. Duyn, Limburg-Stirum, Hoop, Driel, Jonge, and others, were 

 exerting themselves at Amsterdam, the Hague, Rotterdam, Zwolle, 

 and other places, to effect the restoration of the house of Orange. 

 William was at that time in England to concert measures with the 

 British government for the support of the Netherlands. When the 

 victors at Leipzig approached the frontiers of Holland the inhabitants 

 of Amsterdam rose on the 15th and 16th of November, and on the 

 17th the Hague declared for the prince. 



The insurrection of Holland created a sensation of alarm in Paris, 

 while the allies hailed it with joy, as an earnest of further success. 

 When Captain Wautier was sent from the Hague to the head-quarters 

 of the allies at Frankfurt, he met at Munich, on the 22nd of Novem- 

 ber, the Prussian general Bulow, who being informed of what had 

 passed in Holland, observed that this insurrection would be as advan- 

 tageous to the allies as a successful campaign. As soon as William 

 learnt what had passed, he embarked on the 28th of November, and 

 landed at Scheveningen on the 29th. He was received with acclama- 

 tions by the people of the Hague on the 30th, and on the 2nd of 

 December at Amslerdam, where Kemper and Scholten, the commis- 

 sioners of the provisional government, had issued on the 1st of 

 December a proclamation, announcing " Holland is free," and 

 " William I. the sovereign prince of this free country." The prince 

 gratefully assented, and declared that a constitution must guarantee 

 the rights and liberties of the people, and secure them against all 

 encroachments. Twenty-three fortresses were still in the hands of 

 the French, who were encamped near Utrecht ; but the army of the 

 Allies, and the volunteers, who were called to arms, occupied the 

 country. William hastened the arming of the people, and appointed 

 a commission to draw up a constitution, which was accepted on the 

 29th of March 1814 by the deputies of the people, and then sworn to 

 by the prince. He had already taken possession of his hereditary 

 dominions in Germany, before the end of 1813; hereupon the congress 

 at Vienna decided that Belgium and Liege, together with the Seven 

 United Provinces, should be formed into one kingdom ; and on the 

 16th of March 1815 the prince was proclaimed at the Hague as King 

 of the Netherlands and Duke of Luxemburg. But he was obliged to 

 cede to Prussia his hereditary possessions in Germany for Luxemburg, 

 which after the 22nd of May 1815 belonged to the German Confede- 

 ration, and which he now raised in May to the rank of a grand-duchy. 



The union of so many provinces the inhabitants of which, though 

 of the same origin, differed very much in manners, customs, and 

 religious doctrines made a change in the constitution necessary. A 

 commission, consisting of an equal number of Dutch and Belgians, 

 was appointed to make such changes as were requisite. After the 

 king had' approved of this draft of a constitution, it was laid before 

 the States-general and deputies from the southern provinces, and 

 finally proclaimed on the 26th of August. In 1814 the king founded 

 the military order of William, and in 1815, after the battle of Water- 

 loo, the civil order of the Belgian Lion, and on the 21st of June 1816 he 

 joined the Holy Alliance. He resided alternately at Brussels and the 

 Hague. On the 17th of May 1816 a Dutch fleet, under Admiral Van 

 der Capellen, joined the British fleet, under Lord Exmouth, in the 



